Of drugs and patents
The past month has seen the Pharma sector in India undergo tumultuous times following compulsory licensing of Bayer’s anti-cancer drug sorafenib to NATCO and patent refusal to Novartis case pending in the Supreme Court. These cases hold a telling whether price limits would be imposed on over 60% of the drugs in India. Considering that over 50% of India’s 1.2 billion strong population doesn’t have medical insurance, is this good sign? Or would this send wrong signals to the Pharma companies looking at India as a high potential market causing them to divest?